Saturday, September 23, 2006

Bush lost the war on terrorism by waging and losing the war against the people of Iraq. The people of Baghdad have suffered most. It is doubtful that Bush has ever killed, captured, or brought to justice a single bona fide terrorist. It is enough for Bush to produce a body and term it a "terrorist" after the fact. Bush, of course, has assumed for himself the power to define terrorist; therefore, a terrorist now may not have been a terrorist earlier and vice versa. You just have to take Bush's word for it from day to day.

Bush's Orwellian use of the word "insurgent" clouds the issue; it deceives the American people and the world. What Bush calls an "insurgency" is most often a "guerrilla" resistance to the US occupation. It was Dick Cheney who claimed -perhaps falsely -that Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq." Sadly, Tim Russert did not press Cheney on this point despite the fact that there is good reason to doubt Cheney who also told us that we would be greeted as liberators.

Casting doubt on Cheney's assertion is the fact that the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zagawai was a hostile one. At last, Bush has never made a convincing case that either Iraq or Zarqawi had anything at all to do with the events of 911 which he cites as the catch rationale for an endless war. Clearly -this is absurd and especially so when you consider the fact that 911 was never properly or thoroughly investigated.

It was Colin Powell who blamed Al Qaeda for 911. Has anyone seen any convincing evidence that Al Qaeda ever operated out of Iraq? The Washington Post reported that Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda had been disputed even before the US attack and invasion.

A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

The fact of the matter is bluntly this: we don't know who planned or executed 911. Various "official conspiracy theories" are full of holes. And we have George W. Bush to thank for forever for obscuring the truth of it.

The war between Shi'ite and Sunni is something else altogether and the US should never have gotten in the cross fire, though we are definitely the catalyst.

Even George W. Bush recently admitted that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 911 but not before he allowed a terminally gullible American public and a sycophantic corporate media to indulge the delusion and spread the lie for years. In normal times, that would have gotten a President impeached. These are not normal times.

These are times that demonstrate a second very important reason Bush has lost the war on terrorism. These are Orwellian times and terrorism is a perpetual war. Bush has lost this war because he dare not win it and cannot afford to win it. It's the only issue he polls well on; without it, he's finished. It is tragically ironic that the future of humankind may very well depend upon the infamously short American attention span inuring a jaded public to a demagogue who is rapidly approaching the limit to which he can ratchet up a rhetoric that millions have already tuned out.

Bush lost the war on terrorism in many others ways. Prominently, Bush never had an enemy, and, most certainly failed to identify one. Terrorism is not a philosophy or an ideology. Terrorism is a tactic that may be exploited by numerous enemies of US imperialism. Terrorism may be employed against US imperialism from a number of opponents at every end of the political spectrum. How does one wage war against a tactic? Enemies of US imperialism are found everywhere in the world. Are we to invade every country and kill every critic? Absurd!

In this case, a war of arms, tanks, and solders is impotent and absurd. The catastrophe in Iraq proves that. Consider the case of World War II, often cited nostalgically by militarists who find in that chapter redemption for our short but bloody history. Americans cling to the myth that we defeated Nazism -but we did not. What we and our allies defeated was the German army. We did not defeat Nazism itself.

Even the Nuremberg Trials -which US prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson hoped would set a precedent for world justice -did not defeat the Nazi ideology which is still alive and well and less underground than is comfortable. That Bush repudiates the Nuremberg Principles, and, in fact, may be in violation of those principles himself, is evidence enough that Nazism is not dead.

Bush's failure demonstrates a basic, common sense principle apparently lost on American liberals who were initially fooled by Bush. That principle is simply: terrorism cannot be defeated with terrorism; a tactic cannot be defeated by employing that tactic. We are what we do. If we employ terrorism, we are terrorists.

If 911 was an act of terrorism because it targeted the civilian population, then the US attack and invasion of Iraq is, likewise, an act of bloody terrorism. The civilian population of Iraq has suffered from American terrorism, blood lust and vengeance.

There is NO evidence that anyone having had anything to do with 911 was, in any way, and at any time since 911, harmed in any way by the bloody, disproportionate and barbaric Blitzkrieg on Baghdad, a Blitzkrieg, lately called "Shock and Awe", that most certainly murdered some 140,000 civilians in the bombing campaign alone.

This is one of a multitude of compelling reasons Bush must not renounce the Geneva convention. It is absurd that he be allowed to try "detainees" and possibly convict them upon "evidence" kept secret from defendants as well as the American public. Bush -a known and practiced liar -simply cannot be trusted. Such an unprecedented overturn of every principle established by Geneva and Nuremberg would guarantee the executions of a limitless number of innocent civilians. There is no justice without accountability. The alternative is tyranny.

The US is not killing terrorists in Iraq; rather, a guerrilla resistance to the illegal US occupation of that nation are killing Americans. If you think the US is killing bona fide terrorists in Iraq, show me one and prove it. Some very astute writers have charged that George w. Bush took the bait. If terrorists there are in Iraq, they were not there before the US attacked and invaded. Terrorists would not have been tolerated by Saddam Hussein. Hussein is credibly reported to have loathed Bin Laden who is at once Bush's whipping boy but absolutely essential to Bush's perpetual, unwinnable war.

The Bush administration never foresaw nor planned for the eruption of three civil wars now raging in Iraq. The separate wars are waged by Kurds in the Northwest, Sunnis and Shi'ites against one another as well as against the so-called "government" in Baghdad. Confusing the issue for a man who cannot no nuance and most certainly lied about reading "...three Shakespeare's" and a Albert Camus, is the fact that the army that he placed in harm's way is in the cross hairs. More importantly, Soldiers are sent into war zones to shoot people. Who is the enemy? Is the enemy Sunni? Shi'ite? Kurd? Who do we shoot? If none of those groups turn out to be the mortal enemy of the US, then what the hell are we doing in Iraq? [See: Terrorist Network Disconnect, Gareth Porter, September 13, 2006]

Americans have begun to see through transparent lies. Bush, therefore, has found it necessary to obscure truth with yet another: we are war with Islamo-fascism. This is not an enemy! Islamo-fascism is a GOP invention, a phony word made up by the right wing blogosphere and GOP consultants desperate for yet another boogie man. Moreover, Islamo-fascism is racist, on a level with rag head, camel jockey, and sand nigger. Bush might as well have said: we are at war with sand niggers. His policies most certainly wage war on everyone but wasps back home.

Bush plays the race card, knowing full well that his base is mostly bigots and extremists for whom any one of any color is the object of condescension or disgust. These are people who would have taken picnic baskets to lynchings. These are people who call Mexican-Americans spicks and pepper bellies. These are people who called the citizens of Viet Nam -whom we were supposed to be defending against the Viet Cong -gooks! Is anyone surprised that Texas Governor Rick Perry would try to link terrorism with immigration from Mexico -never mind that the suggestion is ludicrous on its face. Perry, nevertheless, appears in a Marlboro man jacket with the Rio Grande behind him and tells the people of Texas that to be secure against terrorism, we must secure our borders against immigrants from Mexico. Last time, I checked none of the 911 terrorists came from Mexico. Perry, like Bush, before him exploits fear, suspicion and bigotry. But Kinky Friedman would not be outdone. He recently called New Orleans evacuees "crackheads and thugs". Earlier, he said that " ...sexual predators should be imprisoned and forced to 'listen to a Negro talking to himself."'

Why should we be surprised that millions more now hate America than at any other time in our history? Is every country in the world, then, peopled with potential enemies of the United States? If so, we have only ourselves to blame; our only enemies are the enemies of our creation, the monster from our collective id; they are the blowback of our stupid bigotry, racism, and ruthless yankee imperialism.

Bush dare not win his war on terrorism because it just might turn out to be as fraudulent as everything else about his failed and miserable administration.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe. ...

Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes...

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Iraq is hell if you live there, survive there, get tortured there. If it gets worse —and it will — the dead will be called lucky. War may be hell but Iraq is the product of one man's lies, frauds, deceptions. Things are so bad that I wonder if Bush will withdraw, re-invade and hope things turn out better. But that assumes Bush wants things to turn out better. He doesn't.

Truth is things couldn't be worse but, as long as Bush occupies Iraq and the White House, things will get worse anyway. Truth is the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam than Bush and are probably nostalgic for Saddam. Truth is we won't get the truth —not on the American media, anyway. It was left to the BBC to report its lead story: torture in Iraq is more hellish now than under former leader Saddam Hussein, demonized and all but compared to Satan by Bush.

Bush had cited Saddam's own hellish torture program as one of his many rationales for the US war of aggression —itself a hell on earth called "Shock and Awe" —the source of pictures of modern, mechanized, souless hell fire if not brimstone. After the attack and invasion, Bush boasted about how much better things were for the Iraqi on the street. That was just one of innumerable lies that this "deceiver of nations" has perpetrated upon the American people and the entire world. Had the Iraqi people been delivered? Into hell! None of this was told us. We were deliberately deceived. All the nations of the world were deceived.

Uh huh! That was a lie that was told to all the nations of the world. There's more.

"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over."

Now —Bush wouldn't deliberately lie through his teeth, would he? The reality in Iraq is a harsh light on the lie. The situation is much worse now; Bush brought to Iraq an American corporate apocalypse, in fact, a preview of the corporate hell that awaits the US.

But one hell at a time. Back to Iraq. Bush's civilian body count, likewise, continues to rise —250,000 dead civilians in Iraq and climbing.

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by U.S.-led coalition forces has been responsible for the death of at least 150,000 civilians.

Each one of them is one count in the war crimes indictment that may one day be returned. Meanwhile, as Bush diverted more than $200 billion from needed services in the US, he has created, in Iraq, a hot bed for discontent, anger, hatred of US imperialism —a hell on earth. In short, Bush has created an incubator for real terrorism —not the phony stuff he exploits; rather, the real thing that will rise up against us in ways Bush will never, could never predict or understand, despite whatever Skull and Bones powers he may pray to in private. In a worst case, Bush may have sealed our fate, insured our doom.

Why did Bush embark upon this deliberate campaign of torture and atrocity? Why did the Bush administration inflame the middle east? Why did Bush pursue policies guaranteed to radicalize moderates and give cause to real terrorists? Why has Bush, in fact, endangered the people of the United States by making of our nation a rogue, outlaw state? Ironically, Bush cannot claim to have made us safer. To do so would remove the only issue around which he might hope to rally the American people: fear!

Whatever was discussed by Dick Cheney and his so-called "Energy Task Force", the result has been the American corporate takeover of Iraq. Surely, in that meeting, it was all planned and discussed just as Hitler literally auctioned off the Third Reich to Thyssen, Krupp, and I.G. Farben —a single meeting described vividly by William Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Just as Hitler favored Farben, lucrative contracts were awarded to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, circumventing even the pretense of a bid process.

The liar-in-chief would have you believe that Iraq is better off. In fact, Iraqi civilians were abandoned to chaos, out-sourced torture, hunger, and —now — civil war. Nothing said by Bush about Iraq has ever been true. By every sane definition Iraq is lost —but for Halliburton, the very picture of a fascist corporate rule, things couldn't be better. Truth is, Iraq has been looted!

The New Testament tells us that Satan is a liar, the great Deceiver, who appears as an angel of light. It tells us that this great master of hoax and deception will lead many Christians into apostate Christianity to their own destruction. It describes him, in the book of Revelation, as the great deceiver of nations.

I'm an agnostic. But I am also a logical positivist who believes that a "thing" is defined by a finite number of "attributes" that are known to exist. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck! Simply —if the "Beast" is defined as "deceiver of nations" ...well, who do you suppose that is? You get one guess.

It would appear that some one in the Middle East, a long time ago, wrote some stuff down that sounds a helluva lot like the hell on earth that Bush has since created in Iraq. Bush has made of himself a helluva "President"! Just ask Hugo Chavez —who understands better than anyone what Bush has in mind for Venezuela. It's a helluva plan.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Bush is in a heap of trouble. The US Congress should be impeaching Bush —NOT conspiring with him to cover his backside! Whatever torture compromise may work its way through an intimidated Congress, it must not help Bush. The US Constitution requires nothing less than a Constitutional Amendment to relieve U.S. obligations under the Geneva convention. At least one Constitutional provision means that nothing legal can get Bush off the hook for the crimes that he has already committed.

Bush seeks an ex post facto law that will make legal —after the fact —his violations of the Geneva Convention having to do with torture.

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

—US Constitution, Article I

That means that Bush cannot commit crimes and make them "legal" later. That includes his having ordered summary executions and brutal tortures, only to have them made legal ex post facto, The Constitution flatly states that it doesn't work that way!

George Washington University Professor and Countdown resident Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley joined Keith tonight to discuss the legal implications of President Bush’s proposed changes to Article III of the Geneva Conventions. Keith raises an obvious yet seldom mentioned point: Is the Bush administration trying to retroactively legalize crimes it very well may have already committed? Wouldn’t be the first time.

Bush is beyond help from a mere act of Congresst. It'll take either the second coming or a constitutional amendment to change any US treaty obligation; the chances of that happening are very, very slim.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Therefore, the Geneva Convention is the supreme law of the land and Bush is subject to it even if Congress should pass a measure that attempts to pardon him or, in any other way, absolve him of the capital crimes that he has already committed.

US Codes, Title 18, § 2441. War crimes bind the US to the those international treaties which address issues of war crimes, crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity. Bush deliberately violated all of them. There is probable cause to bring severe criminal charges against Bush now. If the US government had not been hijacked by a handful of crooked corporations, Bush would already have been impeached, tried, and removed from office to stand trial in ordinary criminal courts. Partisan politics has kept him in office.

Meanwhile in London, Britain's Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warns that the US risks "international condemnation" should it try to renounce Geneva or limit its obligations. Goldsmith's comments come after a US Senate committee rejected changes in the law that Bush had demanded. An alternative measure has been proposed by GOP Senator John McCain and supported by former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who stated earlier:

The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.

—Colin Powell

The world has every reason to doubt. There is no moral basis for the US position and the actions taken on Bush's watch. Bush, like Hitler before him, has thumbed his nose at US international obligations though we are bound to them by our own Constitution —the supreme law of the land.

The media has done the American public a disservice, dealing with this story in Orwellian terms, calling torture "tough questioning" or "stringent interrogation techniques" or some other absurd euphemism. Bush, himself, calls it "an alternative set of procedures"! Hey! We're talking about torture, folks! It's a crime! And when death results —as it has in fact —it's acapital crime prohibited by federal laws, punishable by death.

Moreover, it will take a constitutional amendment to undo those obligations and even that will not exonerate Bush after the fact. Bush perpetrated a fraud upon the nation in order to wage of war of naked aggression, itself a war crime under the Nuremberg Principles. Then, in the course of waging that criminal war, Bush violates Geneva which he now pressures Congress to abjure. My position is: it is not Geneva that Congress should abjure —but Bush! Instead of papering over his crimes with what Bush hopes will exculpate his sorry ass, the Congress should be drafting his impeachment.

The writer of the Sept. 21 letter of the day, "They may be detained, but they get food," ignores the Pentagon's admission that more than 20 detainees deaths have been classified as homicides in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

These deaths were at the hands of U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors, in our facilities. Decent food, medical treatment and humane conditions did not help these detainees. They are dead through some means of torture.

The letter writer also suggested liberals don't understand the enemy we face. Quite the contrary, we see the inhumanity all around and question the leadership, direction and tactics of our war against terrorists.

The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. The Washington Post recently reported that the Bush administration is quietly circulating draft legislation to eliminate crucial parts of the War Crimes Act. Observers on The Hill say the Administration plans to slip it through Congress this fall while there still is a guaranteed Republican majority–perhaps as part of the military appropriations bill, the proposals for Guantánamo tribunals or a new catch-all “anti-terrorism” package.

As David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center pointed out in the August 10 issue of The New York Review of Books, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan v. Rusmfeld “suggests that President Bush has already committed a war crime, simply by establishing the [Guantánamo] military tribunals and subjecting detainees to them” because “the Court found that the tribunals violate Common Article 3–and under the War Crimes Act, any violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime.” A similar argument would indicate that top US officials have also committed war crimes by justifying interrogation methods that, according to the testimony of US military lawyers, also violate Common Article 3.

Lo and behold, the legislation the Administration has circulated on Capitol Hill would decriminalize such acts retroactively.

§ 1339. Of the same class are ex post facto laws, that is to say, (in a literal sense,) laws passed after the act done. The terms, ex post facto laws, in a comprehensive sense, embrace all retrospective laws, or laws governing, or controlling past transactions, whether they are of a civil, or a criminal nature.

And from a more contemporary commentator, the syndicated liberal talk personality from KCAA, Los Angeles:

There is no slicker way to exalt Bush above the law than to simply make legal the laws he's already broken. ...
I have more to say about ex post facto attempts to make legal the numerous crimes Bush has committed but first the Hamden decision to date: In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, handed down June 29, the United States Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush exceeded his authority. Neither the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), nor the so-called inherent powers give Bush a legal authority to set up military tribunals at Guantanamo.

For those of us who have maintained for some time now that Bush is a "war criminal" -- who has breached not only international conventions but also U.S. criminal codes -- the high court's decision is vindication. In effect, SCOTUS has said that for a period of some five years, the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney gang has been guilty of violating the Third Convention on treatment of prisoners of war as well as a U.S. federal law of 1996 which binds the U.S. executive to those relevant parts of the Geneva convention.

Predictably, a conspiratorial GOP is scrambling to let Bush off the hook, even though he is most certainly guilty of violating U.S. and international law. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says that Congress will reverse the Supreme Court's declaration and Sen. Arlen Specter is already at work on the language of the bill. I submit to Sen. McCain that Congress does not have the authority to reverse a decision of the supreme court; it can only pass a new law addressing its objections. Moreover, there is no precedent for excusing culprits ex post facto! On it its face, this is unfair; but more importantly, unconstitutional

Bush and his GOP co-conspirators are routinely at odds with the supreme law of the land but also simple common sense. Because ex post facto laws change —after the fact —the legal consequences of acts already committed, the ex post facto law becomes an instrument of oppression and tyranny. Hoping to crack down on dissenters, for example, a government need only make the voicing of certain opinions a crime but only after they've been printed, broadcast or spoken. Such a government need only make the law, round up the usual suspects, and prosecute them for actions that were legal at the time of their commission. Conversely, the dictator-in-chief in such a society need only subvert the very foundations of law and order itself and demand that his actions be made legal —after the fact! Convenience is the enemy of the rule of law.

Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.

A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him. ...

An update from my good friends at Bad Attitudes:

Donald Rumsfeld is onto something when he suggests that opponents of Bush’s occupation of Iraq are at best appeasers like Chamberlain and at worst Vichy collaborators like Marshal Pétain. World War II parallels to Georgie’s Excellent Adventure actually do exist, although not where our Secretary of “Defense” finds them. They’re in Casablanca.

Doesn’t the Nazi, Major Strasser, remind you of Rummy himself? And of course to most of the world (all of the Arab world), Feldmarschall Rumsfeld’s Iraqi “terrorists” look strikingly like that heroic resistance fighter, Victor Laszlo.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Lesson No. One: Bush is thrown into Abu Ghraib, violated and made to wear a dress! A pop quiz for Bush:

Did you feel violated? Did you feel like your "human dignity" had been violated? Did you feel as small as you really are? Did you lose your self-esteem —or only your big mouthed braggadocio? Would you like to repeat the experience?

Remember, George, this is not a "no child left behind" program; there are no right or wrong answers and you will not be coached to "test". You can be honest —for a change.

Seriously —had this nation chosen to lead the world instead of bullying it, GWB would not be standing up —belligerently, arrogantly, desperately —in front of the American people admitting to the world that he does not understand the meaning of the phrase: outrage against human dignity.

This debate is occurring because of the Supreme Court’s ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Genetion, and that Common Article 3 says that, you know, there will be no outrages upon human dignity.

That’s like — it’s very vague. What does that mean, “outrages upon human dignity”? That’s a statement that is wide open to interpretation. And what I am proposing is that there be clarity in the law so that our professionals will have no doubt that that which they are doing is legal. You know, it’s — and so the piece of legislation I sent up there provides our professionals that which is needed to go forward.

I submit that those who perpetrate outrages to human dignity are those who don't know what it is, i.e. "evil doers" who lack human empathy. There is a short of list of such people: Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Torquemada, Richard Topcliffe, Mao, Mussolini et al.

The matter is open to interpretation only among those —primarily the GOP —who have schemed from the git go to exempt the US from war crimes prosecutions long before the so-called war began. A bill entitled To protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States Government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party was introduced by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as an amendment to H.R. 1646, The Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2001, on May 8, 2001. It passed the House 282-137 on May 10 and introduced as S. 857 in the Senate on May 9 by Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC), Zell Miller (D-GA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Warner (R-VA), Trent Lott (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Frank Murkowski (R-AK).

The bill authorized the President "...to use all means (including the provision of legal assistance) necessary to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by or on behalf of the Court [International Criminal Court, ICC, in the Hague]. That means that Bush could attack the Hague to effect a rescue of US war criminals on trial there.

Consider the implications of the timing. This measure was introduced months before 911 —yet, it is clear, that even then Bushco was planning a war. How could Bush have been so sure that he would have the pretext for war if 911 had not been an inside job? Just asking! Waiting for a plausible answer!

So —Bush's attempt to undermine the ICC while subverting the meat and potatoes of the Geneva Convention was and remains pre-meditated. Bush had been planning to commit war crimes and atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere even before 911. Else —why would Tom DeLay and the above named Republicans have "conspired" to introduce this enabling act before the US congress?

Elsewhere it is learned that the authorization for torture came from Bush himself.

Among a new batch of documents rights groups have forced the gov't to release, a Bureau communication refers to a presidential Executive Order endorsing some forms of torture witnessed at Iraq prison. ...The email, which was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, represents the first hard evidence directly connecting the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the White House. The author of the email, whose name is blanked out but whose title is described as "On Scene Commander -- Baghdad," contains ten explicit mentions of an "Executive Order" that the author said mandated US military personnel to engage in extraordinary interrogation tactics.

Clearly —Bush either understands what "outrages to human dignity" are and chooses deliberately to perpetrate them; or, indeed, he is utterly lacking human empathy and truly does not know what every other human being on earth knows. If Bush "unnerstans" human dignity but orders torture deliberately —knowing it to be unlawful even under US Codes —then his recent hysteria is understandable. Bush is culpable and vulnerable to war crimes prosecutions. [See US Codes; Title 18 § 2441. War crimes]

Here are some "human dignity" lessons for the occupant of our increasingly corporate White House:

Human dignity means not being electrocuted.

Human dignity means not being photographed in a dress while being electrocuted

Human dignity means not having a night stick —or worse —shoved up your rectum by a perverted Halliburton contractor who thinks he's above the law

Human dignity means not being photographed naked in a pile of naked bodies while rolling in excrement.

Human dignity means not being posed in homosexual positions and photographed by perverted Pentagon personnel and/or defense "contractors" from Halliburton or elsewhere.

Human dignity means not being water boarded until willing to confess to anything whether true or not

Human dignity means not having your privates played with by US soldiers who think its funny or get a perverted thrill out of it

Human dignity means not having your head blown off in Shock and Awe whether you liked Saddam or not

Human dignity means forcing war criminals out of your country.

Human dignity means not having done to you what the Washington Post reports were done to hundreds, thousands of Bush's victims.

What is it about "human dignity" that Bush doesn't understand...and why doesn't he understand it? Is it because the man who dares to call himself "President" is a mass murdering torturer by proxy?

Bush has repeatedly stated that US torture policies are within the law. I say they are not! Acts perpetrated by the George W. Bush administration upon his policy and direction violated US Codes; Title 18 § 2441. War crimes, our Constitution, our treaty obligations, and, of course, the common values of our Western Civilization i.e., the very values that Bush claims he is defending. In fact, he subverts them; in this, he has been much more successful than "terrorists" which he claims "...just hate freedom".

Torture, moreover, is ineffective, repugnant, an abominable evidence of savergy and barbarism. Civilized nations do not torture. Legitimate administrations do not torture. Intelligence gathered by torture is notoriously inaccurate and misleading. Bush's cruelest lie: that the US is involved in a great war on terrorism. It's a fraud and Bush's own words betray him. Colin Powell, who helped lie this nation into aggressive war, may be trying to atone for his sins.

The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism!

—Colin Powell

I would submit to Powell that the lies he helped tell about Iraq completely undermined the "moral basis" for this war from the start. There is no moral basis for this immoral war.

At last, our war is lost when our behavior is no longer distinguishable from that of terrorists. We have become the terrorists. Pogo said it first: "We have seen the enemy and he is us!"